What happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force? Has the “irresistible” Narendra Modi government finally met its match in India’s immovable youth who refuse to budge from Jantar Mantar despite vilification by the godi media, tear gas, beatings, pellet guns, and now an even greater presence of security forces?On the morning of July 23, I saw two young women, Tanvi and Anjali, both students of Delhi University, walking slowly and somewhat painfully towards the Jantar Mantar protest site. I remembered them from the AISA tent where Neha, Manish and Aameen had fasted for 23 days. Anjali had given me a fiery interview on the morning Sonam Wagchuk had been forcefully removed (July 18), and I remembered Tanvi as being a quiet presence at the tent, looking after the fasting protesters in the blistering July heat and tending to their needs.As they drew closer I noticed that Tanvis arm was in a crepe bandage and Anjali’s foot in a plaster cast. “What happened?” I asked. “Is this from July 20?”Anjali motioned to Tanvi to answer the question, which she did.“When we started the march to parliament on July 20,” she said, “we realised that this wasn’t just a university students’ march. School students were also present, some with their parents and some without, as were elderly people, gig workers, farmers and labourers. We started our march from Janpath Metro station, but as we progressed, we saw the route ‘decorated’ with progressively greater numbers of barricades and greater police brutality.”Left, Tanvi. Right, a moment from the protests.As soon as they crossed the third set of barricades, Tanvi said the police fired tear gas into the crowd and began detaining the marchers. “We kept going, doing our best to keep each others’ spirits high,” she said, “but as soon as we crossed the fourth set of barricades, the police lathicharged us brutally. Skulls were cracked open as the police threw people on the ground to beat them, even if the object of their brutality was a woman or an elderly person.”Also read: Senior Cop Sandeep Lamba, Recorded Slapping a Woman Protester, Removed from Jantar Mantar DutyThe police, she said, then picked up stones and started hurling them at the protesters, and smashing the cars around them.“The police began hurling stones and smashing cars?” I asked, just to make sure I had understood her clearly.“Yes,” she said. “They then started pushing my friends and I towards the LIC building there where other police personnel were already lying in wait to thrash the protesters.”Tanvi said the cops chased them from there saying, “How dare you come here?” all the while hurling vile abuses. “They made it a point to especially target women and beat them,” she added.“I was hit hard on the hand. I have injuries on my back and internal wounds too. They then pushed us against a wall and told us to jump over it. The wall had an 8-feet high railing with pointed ends and barbed wires which had electricity running through it! People were screaming and crying and begging the cops to let them go. In trying to get away, not just their clothes tore but their skin too. Somehow we managed to escape by a back door, where to our chagrin, we saw more cops. We finally managed to circle back to the Jantar Mantar protest site only to realise that many of our fellow students were missing. It took us two hours to finally track them down. Many of us have sustained serious injuries and still have swellings and blood clots.”Left somewhat speechless at this story of unspeakable violence, I finally asked her, “After all that, you still came back here to protest?”“Despite everything the police did, we are not scared. Jantar Mantar is alive and will continue to stay alive till such a time as Dharmendra Pradhan resigns and the education system changes.”Also read: New Delhi’s Day of Violence Was Also One of Courage and HopeTanvi’s is one of countless similar stories. Some young people, in fact, have put together a website, www.memoriesofjuly20.com with the following invitation: Hello friends,If you were at Jantar Mantar on 20th July, and you witnessed what happened, or watched it online, please document your experiences here.This public archive shall serve as a living record, a testament of what we experienced, how we felt. (You can choose to be Anonymous) We believe that every story counts, every experience matters.So what happens when “an immovable object meets an irresistible force?” In the case of Narendra Modi vs the youth of India, Tanvi, Anjali, and thousands of others like them might have just answered that age-old question.Rohit Kumar is an educator.